diff -r ba699cf9bdbb Lib/smtplib.py
--- a/Lib/smtplib.py	Mon Apr 11 03:45:25 2011 +0300
+++ b/Lib/smtplib.py	Tue Apr 12 12:30:13 2011 -0300
@@ -134,20 +134,27 @@
     """Quote a subset of the email addresses defined by RFC 821.
 
     Should be able to handle anything rfc822.parseaddr can handle.
+
+    The default return format is "<some@email.org>", when clean
+    is True, the format is "some@email.org"
     """
     m = (None, None)
     try:
         m = email.utils.parseaddr(addr)[1]
     except AttributeError:
         pass
+    if clean:
+        fmt = "%s"
+    else:
+        fmt = "<%s>"
     if m == (None, None):  # Indicates parse failure or AttributeError
         # something weird here.. punt -ddm
-        return "<%s>" % addr
+        return fmt % addr
     elif m is None:
         # the sender wants an empty return address
-        return "<>"
+        return fmt % ''
     else:
-        return "<%s>" % m
+        return fmt % m
 
 def quotedata(data):
     """Quote data for email.